The deal that started a revolution in Ukraine has finally come into fruition.

Ukraine's newly elected president signed a historic trade and economic agreement with the European Union on Friday that more closely aligns the country with Western powers — something that many Ukrainians have been fighting for since November and a deal that Russian President Vladimir Putin has sought to avoid.

A beaming Petro Poroshenko called it "maybe the most important day for my country" since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko holds up a pen after a signing ceremony at an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, June 27, 2014.

Image: Olivier Hoslet, Pool/Associated Press

The agreement lets businesses in former Soviet republics Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia trade freely in any of the EU's 28 member nations without tariffs or restrictions, as long as their goods and practices meet EU standards. Likewise, goods and services from the EU will be sold more easily and cheaply in the three countries.

Shedding the Soviet identity

But for Ukrainians, the deal represents a shift in cultural mindset, shedding its Soviet identity for a new one.

Former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych backed out of the same deal last year under pressure from Russia. He turned to Moscow shortly after for a $15 billion bailout that guaranteed to keep the country under Putin's thumb for years to come.

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians poured onto Kiev’s streets to protest the former president’s abrupt decision. Known as Euromaidan, the three-month-long anti-government demonstrations ebbed and flowed until they came to a head in February when government troops in Kiev killed nearly 100 people in a span of just two days. Those clashes led to a bloody week that ended in the toppling of Yanukovych's regime. The ousted president then fled the country for Russia.

Since the ouster, Russia has hovered over Ukraine like a dark shadow. Just weeks later, masked troops—which turned out to be Russian soldiers—started popping up in Crimea, a peninsula in the country's south that is home to a majority of Russian-language speakers.

Although Ukraine's interim government sent in a few troops in an attempt to quell a takeover, the unorganized effort was unsuccessful. Under the gun, Crimea held a referendum and was annexed from Ukraine. Today, Russia considers Crimea its territory, however, the EU and other Western powers have stated that they refuse to recognize it as such.

At the same time, pro-Russian insurgents started emerging throughout the eastern regions of Ukraine, inciting bloodshed and even more tension with Russia. Some 110,000 Ukrainians have fled this year for Russia. Another 54,000 have left their homes but remained in the country as Ukraine fights separatist rebels, according to the UN refugee agency.

Though there is now technically a cease-fire in place, a permanent peaceful solution will be one of Poroshenko's biggest tasks as Ukraine's new president.

But for now, he can bask in at least one huge victory this week with this trade agreement, which European Commission experts say will boost Ukraine's national income by $1.6 billion a year.

Ukraine will use “the opportunity to modernize,” the president said, stressing the importance of peace and security for its future and that of the region.

He also boldly declared the signing of the deal to be the first step toward Ukraine's full-fledged EU membership.

“The association agreement is an instrument of preparations for our future accession to the EU. The EU is not only an association of individual countries. Rather, the EU is an idea, it is compliance with European standards,” Poroshenko said.

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko, center, poses with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, left, and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, right on June 27, 2014. Poroshenko signed a deal with the EU on Friday that more closely aligns the nation with Western powers.

Image: AP Photo/Associated Press

Poroshenko, however, will eventually have to overcome Russian opposition to this deal.

Putin didn't immediately comment on the EU deal. Over the past week, Putin, whose regime has been trampled with sanctions from Western nations over his involvement in Ukraine, has made moves showing his interest in de-escalating the conflict in the east.

"The most important thing is to guarantee a long-term regime of cease-fire as a precondition for meaningful talks between the Kiev authorities and representatives of the southeast (of Ukraine)," Putin said Friday.

The United Nations estimated 423 people were killed in the conflict between April 15 and June 20. As Poroshenko put pen to paper in Brussels, reports came in from eastern Ukraine of the deaths of four servicemen during clashes with separatist fighters early Friday outside the city of Kramatorsk.

The cease-fire was set to expire at 10 p.m. local time on Friday, but Poroshenko extended it for three days.

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